How do you set up a dual processor system?

[godspeedx]

What do you have to do to get a dual processor system up? How much would it cost to make one.
And say I have 2x P4 2.0 ghz processors, what will my total clock speed be, 4 ghz?

 

[Superman9534]

no it will be 2 times 2ghz. It wouldnt really be like 4ghz. And you would have to have XP pro to take advantage of Dual processors. All you can do w/ dual is run more things...things won't run twice as fast. Say you are running SETI and UT 2003, Seti can have its own processor and UT 2003 can have its own and now slow down the system at all.

And all you need is a dual processor motherboard. (im not sure if P4s go dual or if you need the xeons)

 

[Ben50]

AFAIK you have to have xeon processors for a dual system. I'm pretty sure plain P4s are restricted to single cpu systems only. Also, it only makes sense to get a dual cpu system if you use programs that take advantage of them such as high-end 3d graphics, CAD, etc. If you don't use any programs like that, you would be better off with a faster single processor.

 

[Viper96720]

Don't think any dual cpu boards are availble for P4's would have to go Xeon, AMD or P3. You would need to run programs that takes advantage of dual processors. Helps with multitasking you could be converting a video to divx or something and be able to do something else without much slow down. If your just using it for gaming fast videocard and the 3ghz p4. Probably cheaper that a dual xeon setup. Some of those xeon boards are over $400. The 3ghz P4 is $800 though

 

[ColdZero]

Desktop P4s aren't made for SMP. You've got to get a pair of Xeons if you want to do the P4 SMP thing. Or go AMD or P3 as was mentioned above. I woudln't go P3 because there are single processors that are faster than 2 P3s and the boards they will run on are more future proof than anything the P3s will run on. Xeons also have Hyperthreading like the new 3.06 P4. You'd have 2 physical CPUs and 2 logical CPUs. As was mentioned in the anandtech article, you need to use XP Pro for this because Win2k pro won't recognize 4 processors like this because it was only ment to work with 2. WinXP Pro is Hyperthreading aware and will work with the 4 "processors" that HT Dual Xeons will have.